The Sleep Chronicles - We are in Business!!

Willow slept another 10 hours last night!! I thought I would sum up what we worked on and the successes we had over the past week or so of trying to change her schedule.

The Problem:
Willow was waking up too early in the morning. She was waking up before 5:00am, which was too early for our liking. However, she had trouble staying up past her well established 7:30pm bedtime.

The Experiment:
We have been charting Willow's sleep patterns since December when she was 3 months old. We first experimented with restricting her daytime napping to see if that had an effect on the duration of her night time sleep. That did not work as we discovered (and had suspected) that the amount of time she slept during the day had no bearing on how long she slept at night. This was confirmed when she slept 3, 2, and 1 hours respectively over a three day period and slept the same 9.5 hours per night each night.

So, we were left with changing her bed time. This proved to be a little difficult since her bed time had been established for a long time and she was having a lot of trouble staying awake.

The Solution:
Over a few day period, we gradually (in 5-10 minute increments) changed her bedtime from 7:30pm to 8:00pm. This is what did the trick!! (Just like Ferber said) She is now waking up just after 6:00am in the morning!! Since we knew what her night time sleep length was, and that was not changing, the solution was to change the time she went to bed. That way, she gets the same amount of sleep (in Willow's case 1/2 an hour more) but she is waking up at a more desirable time.

Sure, our nighttime "alone" time is slightly compromised, but it's only 1/2 an hour and everyone is happier when Willow has a better night's sleep.

I hope this has helped you if you have an "early riser". I know most children are "up with the sun" but now her wake time is much better for us all. As such, we are closing "The Sleep Chronicles" for now. But they will be back if we need to tweak anything in the future! If you have any questions or would like advise, feel free to comment!